Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change

“Extreme Cities” author Ashley Dawson in conversation with Kate Aronoff and Mandy Ikert. Moderated by Audrea Lim. Recorded at Verso Books in Brooklyn on October 20, 2017.

Ashley Dawson, author of “Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change,” offers an accessibly written discussion of two of the greatest forces affecting society in the twenty-first century: urbanization and climate change. Anchored in a portrait of New York City during and after Hurricane Sandy, he adopts a comparative lens to show how and why extreme social and climatological conditions are germinating in cities around the globe.

In addition to painting the challenges urban civilization faces in the twenty-first century in stark terms, “Extreme Cities” lays out a program for the socially just cities that are necessary to help humanity survive the coming storms of climate chaos.